KGO: Porn, Sex Crimes At Libraries

KGO did an investigation of Porn in the Libraries!! that raises some interesting questions. They sensationalize the story as much as they can—that is the way TV news works—but their shocking revelations are not that shocking to me. Yes, homeless people—unsanitary, unruly, broken-down homeless people—frequent the library to get warm, use the bathrooms, and get some sleep. Yes, people use public web terminals to browse all kinds of porn. None of this is news. The reporters don't mention it, but guess what, you're kids can browse that porn too. They almost certainly have been exposed to it to some degree if they spend any time on the web. So public porn browsing in the library is not a shocker and is not a unique threat to our kids.

The most interesting part of the segment comes towards the end. They conclude, correctly in my opinion, that web filters and other policy "solutions" are doomed. They don't filter all porn. They curb legitimate uses. They are an ineffective approach that raises their own set of problems. What does work are vigilant grownups who don't tolerate unsafe, unwanted behavior. Oakland's public library is a positive example they contrast with San Jose and San Francisco. The librarians make a point of not tolerating unwanted behavior and it makes a difference. The police detail at our main library should be making sure that homeless people are not camping in the library. They should be able to respond quickly to any librarian that needs help dealing with unruly patrons. And librarians, knowing they have the cops at their back, need to monitor library visitors more actively.

Meanwhile, if you think the library is safely cloistered from the grisly world around it, think again. If you are outraged that your child might be exposed to porn on someone else's web terminal at the library, you need to take precautions. But really, open your eyes. They will see porn on their own web terminal sooner or later. If you are concerned, you need to have a talk with them.

Chan questions her ability to work for the BOE

The Examiner is reporting that Gwen Chan is unsure if she will even apply for the superintendent job: Chan: I might not be right person for job

Chan said she’s not so convinced she is the right person for the job, saying the odds are “50-50” she’ll apply. The board’s 4-2 vote on Nov. 14 to eliminate the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps due to anti-war concerns and the military’s ban on gays has made her question what relationship she’d have with the school board, she said. Chan openly expressed support for the program.

I've been a big fan of her tenure so far. I think she has demonstrated a remarkable ability to get things done under extreme pressure — in spite of her interim status, in spite of rancorous BOE politics. If a talented, qualified professional like herself — someone with deep roots in the district and an intimate knowledge of the districts schools — can foresee irreconcilable problems working with the incoming BOE, that is not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

School Board Notes 11.28.06

• Diversity Index Not Diversifying, Report Says
• Proposal Would Add Race/Ethnicity as a Factor
• Community Input Gathered for Long-Range Plan

Diversity Index Not Diversifying, Report Says

As the Board of Education considers changing the method of assigning students to schools, including adding race as a factor, it met as the Committee of the Whole last night and heard a presentation from the staff about segregation in the district.

The school choice process by which families list their seven most desired schools was meant to provide equal access to the best schools for diverse groups of students. However, data staff presented revealed troubling issues related to race.

The numbers of families who chose to participate in the choice process varies significantly by ethnic group. Five percent of Chinese-American students don't participate, compared to 15 percent of white students, 32 percent of Latino students, and 50 percent of African-American students.

In addition, the schools families chose varies by ethnic group. The most requested elementary school for African Americans is Drew; for Chinese Americans, Lawton; for Latino, Buena Vista; and for Caucasians, Lilienthal. Not one of the most requested elementary schools is common across all racial and ethnic groups.

The result, district data showed, is that the applicant pool for each school is not racially and ethnically diverse.

• 44 percent (43 schools out of 97) of the schools had applicant pools of more than 45 percent of any single ethnic group. The district considers any school that has more than 45 percent of any single ethnic group to be segregated.
• 22 percent (21 schools) had applicant pools of more than 60 percent of one racial or ethnic group.

"The diversity index is not designed to optimize racial/ethnic diversity and it doesn't, especially when the applicant pool already has high concentrations of single racial/ethnic groups requesting specific schools," the staff report stated.

The report also noted that 17 percent of the students who apply in the first round of the process do not go on to become SFUSD students, even though half of these students received their first-choice school. Attrition rates are highest among white families: 36 percent of white families participating in the first round did not go on to enroll in SFUSD.

Proposal Would Add Race/Ethnicity as a Factor

The meeting was called in part to discuss a board proposal to modify the student assignment method that would, among other changes, include race a factor. The proposal was withdrawn from the agenda at the last meeting because some board members felt further discussion was needed. At last night's meeting, Commissioners Eric Mar and Eddie Chin voiced their support for the proposal and urged that it be introduced at the next regular meeting, on December 12.

"This may not be perfect, but we have to move as quickly as we can and see if we can put ethnicity back in student assignment," Chin said.

The proposed resolution directs the district to take steps including:

• Add race and ethnicity as a factor in the student assignment lottery
• Create a working group to recommend changes to the admissions process for Lowell High School and SOTA High School that would ensure equitable opportunities for students with diverse backgrounds to attend the schools and increase the diversity of the enrollment
• Work with the Omega Group, a consulting firm, to examine current attendance area boundaries
• Review and revise the transportation system in a manner consistent with the goals of the student assignment method

Community Input Gathered for Long Range Plan

As part of its comprehensive plan to revise student assignment and stanch declining enrollment, the board initiated a community engagement effort headed by the Parent Advisory Council to gather input from stakeholders. The PAC reported last night on the results of its efforts thus far.

The PAC will continue to hold community meetings through December and January. It will analyze the findings and prepare a final report by early March. The staff will present a long-range plan to the board sometime later that month.

So far, the PAC has held 50 meetings, and spoken with 500 community members, including 100 youth. PAC members said it was premature to offer detail on the opinions they were hearing. They did report, however, that community members wanted a say in the process but that many people were skeptical their input was going to be used.

The meetings are small groups of about 10 people and involve concentrated, detailed discussions of what people want from schools and how people make decisions regarding which schools to attend. The groups have included parents of school-age children, including those who go to private or charter schools; parents of preschoolers and toddlers; teachers; youth; and San Francisco residents who are not parents.

The meetings will continue to be held for the next two months. Those interested in participating may contact any of the following people:

• Gentle Blythe, director of the Office of Public Outreach, at (415) 241-6565 or blytheg@sfusd.edu
• Ruth Grabowski of the Parent Advisory Council at pac@sfusd.edu
• Katie Albright of the San Francisco Education Fund at getinvolved@sfedfund.org

San Francisco Preschool Finder

School shopping season is in high gear. Not only are parents struggling with their choices for new schools for their K, 6, and 9 graders, many are also searching for suitable preschool options. Now there is a new goolge map based resource to help them find schools by location: SF Preschool Finder

Check it out. I love maps, and I love Google map applications such as our own SFUSD Info Map. This one looks very promising. The listings appear to be extensive, though some of the information is a bit thin. Hopefully the coverage will grow as more people use it and contribute to it.

Webcast of the 11.16.2006 BOE meeting

The video webcast of the Novermber 11th BOE Meeting is available. It can also be accessed from the main SFGTV site. The bulk of the meeting is devoted to the JROTC and Leadership High issues. There is a brief SRO update at the end around the 3:50:00 mark.

School Board Notes 11.27.06 - Superintendent Search Firms

School Board Notes 11.27.06

• District Considers Superintendent Search Firms
• California School Boards Association
• Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates
• Leadership Associates

District Considers Superintendent Search Firms

Three executive search firms pitched their services to a Board of Education committee on Monday to help the district search for a superintendent. The committee included board members Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar and Dan Kelly, and community members Jan Masaoka, Eunice Azzani and former Mayor Art Agnos. At its next regular meeting, December 12, the board will select one of the firms to lead the search for a new superintendent.

The three firms interviewed were the Executive Search Services of the California School Boards Association, an organization that lobbies for and provides services to school districts; Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, a national search firm specializing in education; and Leadership Associates, a California-based firm that specializes in superintendent searches.

All three proposed structures that involved first, a period of public engagement and intensive discussion with the board, then recruiting through a variety of means 25 to 50 qualified candidates, and finally, presentation to the board of three to 10 finalists.

All firms agreed there should be significant public input in determining the qualities the district needs in a superintendent. But there were significant differences over how open the process should be. Making public the names of those under consideration would significantly shrink the pool of candidates, recruiters said. Some of the most qualified candidates might be happy to take the opportunity if it came, but wouldn't want to risk their current jobs to get it. Several recruiters cautioned against having Community Advisory Committees actually take part in the decision, as CACs were perceived as more prone than school boards to leak candidates' names.

California School Boards Association

CSBA conducted SFUSD's last search, in which the district hired Arlene Ackerman, who resigned from last fall amid controversy over her leadership. CSBA was also involved in recent searches in Los Angeles and Culver City, CA. The organization characterizes board involvement as "the heart" of its service.

CSBA's public engagement process includes Web-based surveys of community members, community meetings, site visits to schools to speak with staff and administrators, and meetings with other major city leaders. The organization then compiles a public report on its findings and, working with the board, begins a search.

Molly McGee Hewitt, director of the firm's executive search services, stated her commitment to providing candidates of diverse backgrounds. The organization prides itself on hiring of women and minorities. CSBA representatives cautioned the pool of candidates might be smaller if the interview process were open, or if a Community Advisory Committee — which could potentially leak candidates names — were involved. "It's more risky, but we can mitigate that somewhat by having them sign confidentiality agreements." Hewett said.

Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates

The firm, based in Glenview, IL, the only national firm to interview with the district, has done 500 school district searches throughout the U.S. It stressed its aggressiveness in seeking out the widest pool of candidates, a strategy based on calling 30 to 40 education leaders a day to ask for suggestions of who might be good candidates, and following up all recommendations.

The firm also underscored its commitment to long-term placements, saying most of its executives served 10 years or longer, compared with the average tenure for a superintendent in an urban school district of three years. "There's a correlation between the stability of leadership and the performance of students," partner Bill Attea said.

Attea said the firm would work with the board to structure a process that includes extensive public engagement. "We highly recommend that the board make the decision and does the interviews, with the community involvement on the front end of the process," he said. "You get a much, much stronger candidate pool." However, he said, the firm has worked on superintendent searches that ran the gamut, including those in which candidate interviews were not only conducted by CACs but were open to the public. Ultimately, Attea said, the decision would be up to the board.

Leadership Associates

Having placed 130 superintendents, Leadership is smaller than the other firms. But it stressed its local ties and its familiarity with California's unique budgeting and policy considerations as an asset. The members who would lead the search, Jim Brown and Larry Aceves, were formerly superintendents in the Bay Area, in Palo Alto and San Jose, respectively.

Leadership prides itself on the quality of its candidates — a quality it credits, in part, to a strict policy of confidentiality. The firm proposed a public engagement process of five days of public input, in which members would be at the district from dawn until dusk meeting with community members. However, the firm won't work on a search in which there is an open interviewing process. "If an open community interview is part of the process, we're not the right firm," Brown said. "People trust us when we go recruiting that this will be kept confidential."

The firm recently completed a search in Sacramento that it said was similar to that of that SFUSD, and is completing one in Pasadena, which had significant community interest and input. The firm also completed searches is Hayward, Monterey and Irvine that were unsuccessfully initiated by other recruitment firms. One of the most important factors in a successful search, Aceves said, is board members' agreement on what they are looking for. "If the board is not on the same page with one another, let alone the superintendent, it's not going to work," Aceves said.

The New York Times and KIPP

The New York Times Sunday Magazine explored the issue of closing the achievement gap in Paul Tough's 11/26/06 article, "What it Takes to Make a Student." It focused partly on KIPP and the factors behind its schools' success. That prompts me to recount, again, my amateur volunteer research on KIPP.

A dad at San Francisco's KIPP Bayview Academy mentioned proudly on the sfschools listserve that his daughter had "tested into" the KIPP school. My question about what he meant by "tested into" got no response. I decided to see if KIPP was telling applicants they had to "test into" the schools. I took my 7th-grader to drop by a San Francisco KIPP school (KIPP SF Bay Academy, because we were nearby) and ask about applying. They said she did not have to "test into" the school itself, but were very clear that she would have to be tested to determine what grade she's in. I've visited many schools as a prospective applicant, and that's the only time I've even been given the message "don't assume that she'll be in her current grade, because only our tests will determine her grade level" (my interpretation, not a direct quote).

That raises the question of whether many incoming KIPP students are moved back a grade level. This seems feasible, as the KIPP schools are grades 5-8 and generally all the feeder schools are grades K-5. I don't know of any way to know that if KIPP isn't announcing it. It seems like a very legitimate way to help students catch up, but if so, shouldn't KIPP be discussing it publicly as one of its strategies? That wasn't mentioned in the New York Times magazine article.

I went fishing through demographics of California's KIPP schools on the Dataquest section of the California Department of Education website. There are several patterns at the majority of California's KIPP schools:

• Most of them show changes in the number of African-American students, especially boys, from grade to grade, that seem to indicate that a large number are held back in the higher KIPP grades. The numbers show reductions in one grade and corresponding bumps in the grade behind.
• The numbers at most of those schools also show significant attrition among African-American students, especially boys. Many who enter the KIPP schools do not finish.

Again, it's legitimate for KIPP schools to have high numbers of kids repeating grades, and it's legitimate for many students who start the school to leave before finishing. However, if those are strategies that help explain KIPP schools' successes — especially high attrition of unsuccessful students — they were not mentioned in the New York Times magazine article, and they have not been discussed in other commentaries on KIPP schools that I have seen. If those are successful strategies, they should be aired and explored so that all educators can learn from them.

A few other points from my unscientific research:

• I learned in my visit to a KIPP school and from other research that KIPP schools have discipline policies built around a "shunning" system that to my middle-class eye is shockingly draconian. This might help explain the schools' high attrition.
• The KIPP schools rely on a strategy of ongoing material rewards to students, who receive regular "pay" in KIPP dollars to spend on goods at a KIPP store. Again, if that is a significant part of the schools' successful strategy, it should be aired and discussed.
• The numbers as gleaned from the California Department of Education website do not appear to bear out the unattributed claim in the New York Times magazine article that "all (KIPP schools) have long waiting lists." Incoming class sizes in most California KIPP schools vary in a manner indicating that they are not all full. As an aside, I also learned in my visit that KIPP rewards students and families for aggressively recruiting to the schools. They get KIPP dollars for bringing in an inquiry and Gap/Old Navy gift certificates for bringing in a new enrolled student.

I think a report on KIPP is incomplete without these pieces of information, so I'm adding them to the discussion.

— Caroline

Undeserved PR black eye for SFUSD

Every year school districts have to give a state-mandated series of fitness tests to students. Results are reported for kids in 5th, 7th and 9th and usually wind up in some summary form in the press. The school district reports the results to the California Department of Education, which compiles them all and reports them to the world.

This year's SFUSD results looked kind of weird. A cursory glance at the statistics shows that there's an error. Look at the category for "flexibility" and you will note that 0 kids at every level are reported as passing that category.

Well, duh, someone at SFUSD or the CDE screwed up. Obviously it's not possible that zero kids passed the flexibility test. I asked a handy 7th-grader — an accomplished dancer — who said of course she passed it; it was easy. Any idiot can glance at the CDE chart and see that it's a bureaucratic screwup.

I learned about this silly and apparently inconsequential error a couple of days ago. But today I walk by a batch of newsracks at 19th and Irving, and see a headline on the mysterious San Francisco Daily screaming: "SF kids out of shape: Every 9th-grader failed test — educators are in disbelief." The story quotes dietitians and experts about how kids spend too much sedentary time and too much time on Playstations and yada yada.

Turns out the reporter who failed to notice that this was an obvious bureaucratic error works for Bay City News Service, which has presumably sent this story out far and wide. I called them (as a parent volunteer member of the SFUSD Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee). I am so sure they're knocking themselves out to send out a correction. But the headline is still sitting there on the newsstand.

Minor bureaucratic snafu multiplied by clueless reporting equals PR black eye.

And what a waste of a bunch of people's time doing all this testing, compiling, reporting etc. — plus the time of the reporter who failed to (duh) notice that it was an obvious bureaucratic error and called to interview sources, plus the sources', plus mine — sheesh.

— Caroline

Civic Center: Public School Enrollment Fair

Check out this very nicely done photo journal of the Public School Enrollment Fair

JROTC issue not going away

Supporters of JROTC are hoping to revisit the issue. Newsom and Feinstein are searching for ways to reverse the decision. The Chron reports: Newsom tries to find solution to rescue JROTC

He said he has talked with Feinstein and said he felt certain the San Francisco school board vote was an embarrassment to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who represents the city and already has had to defend her hometown from charges of faulty "values."

But the national politicians seem to be essentially powerless, too, when it comes to changing such a decision by a local school board.

As the article notes, the BOS is poised to pass a resolution in support of the ban, which will pour a little more gasoline on the fire and keep the anti-SF headlines coming. The lame duck BOE will not revisit the vote. The only hope lies with the incoming BOE, but those prospects are dim. If ban supporters Sanchez or Mar lead the next BOE, it will be exceedingly difficult to bring this back before the board no matter what the new commissioners think—and all three expressed tepid ambivalence on the issue during their campaigns.

As you might expect, the national press and the right wing of the blogosphere is lapping up the JROTC ban story. What better way to paint our town as a haven for American-hating extremism. This decision will become a poster child for the "San Francisco Values" meme. Nice job BOE.

Jeff Jacoby of the Globe wrote this editorial, which is getting published far and wide: Anti-military bigotry by the bay

"IN THE FIRST place God made idiots," observed Mark Twain. "This was for practice. Then he made school boards." The San Francisco Board of Education's 4-2 vote last week to abolish the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, which has been active in the city's high schools for 90 years, tends to support his view.

Closer to home, Debra Saunders of the Chron wrote this op-ed, which is also getting picked up in many outlets nationally: San Francisco Unified: Ruthless Political Correctness Run Amuck

In one vote, board members Dan Kelly, Mark Sanchez, Sarah Lipson and Eric Mar buried a program that can provide structure for the at-risk students whose lives they claim to want to improve. Left-leaning politics clearly are more important to these four than the futures of flesh-and-blood teenagers who may fall through the educational cracks because they are struggling to develop the self-discipline and leadership skills that JROTC fosters.

On the other side of the ledger, BeyondChron published this article written by one of the activists who worked in support of the ban: Ousting JROTC: A San Francisco Value

The November 14 San Francisco School Board vote to phase out JROTC from high schools in the district was a litmus test on how pro-gay the city really is. The Board passed the test with flying colors, approving the resolution from openly gay member Mark Sanchez with a thumbs up from Sarah Lipson, Eric Mar and Dan Kelly. Jill Wynns and Norman Yee turned thumbs down on the ouster of the Pentagon program whose purpose is to recruit young people into the military.

Normally I am happy to see the national right wing take mistaken aim at San Francisco. There are so many issues where we can stand up for liberal and progressive values that are meaningful, populist and important. Not in this case. This issue just provides potent ammunition for the right wing. It is a real setback for those of us of the "libertarian democrat" persuasion. Jerry Brown gets it. In the Saunders op-ed he is quoted:

"The notion of the new left is decentralization. It's choice. It's respect for difference. It's diversity. All four of those principles were fundamentally violated by the school board."

"I oppose the war in Iraq, too, but that has nothing to do with the value of ROTC and the right of people to choose that."

Per pupil funding among schools

Over on the list, the allegation has been made that the district is spending three times as much on students in some low performing schools as they are spending at others. This seemed hard to believe, so I rolled up my sleeves to check out the claim.

I went back into our archives and dug up a link to the 06-07 budget. Technically, the link was to the 2nd reading of the proposed budget, which was adopted. In that tome I found per-site spending information starting on page 47. I converted that table into a spreadsheet containing the 2006-2007 per school budgets.

The spreadsheet includes a column, not found in the original budget document, showing the per pupil budget for each site. Sorting on this data reveals the schools with the highest and lowest per pupil spending. The top ten are:

School	enrolled	Budget	$/pupil
Willie Brown K-8	142	$1,466,729	$10,329
Davis MS	179	$1,730,319	$9,667
Washington HS	1,192	$8,040,514	$6,745
Malcolm X ES	159	$1,054,292	$6,631
Drew ES	313	$2,022,385	$6,461
Everett MS	448	$2,788,148	$6,224
Sanchez ES	260	$1,560,282	$6,001
Revere ES	389	$2,161,557	$5,557
Muir ES	343	$1,874,434	$5,465
O'Connell HS	803	$4,378,831	$5,453

Followed by the bottom 10 schools:

School	enrolled	Budget	$/pupil
Lilienthal K-8	717	$2,658,033	$3,707
Washington HS	2,192	$8,040,514	$3,668
Marina MS	991	$3,627,943	$3,661
Clarendon ES	559	$2,027,456	$3,627
Roosevelt MS	753	$2,726,542	$3,621
Lincoln HS	2,420	$8,401,065	$3,472
Aptos MS	919	$3,155,805	$3,434
Hoover MS	1,244	$4,211,311	$3,385
Giannini MS	1,262	$4,222,744	$3,346
Presidio MS	1,205	$4,028,326	$3,343
Independence HS	362	$1,150,846	$3,179

Sure enough, when you compare the per pupil budget for Malcolm X to that of Independence HS you find the ratio is greater than 3x. Even if you compare against the lowest funded elementary school — which is a more valid comparison — the ratio is still above 3x.

But that paints a very misleading picture. Malcolm X and Davis MS are two statistical outliers. Their extremely low attendance completely distorts the per pupil figure. They are both schools undergoing active reforms that include an infusion of money at the same time that they have driven down enrollment. If we ignore these two anomalous schools, the ration between the more generously funded schools and the most cash starved is less than 2x. There are still significant funding differences among the schools, but they are no so unconscionable.

The other fact that jumps out at me in data is the fact that middle schools are so poorly funded compared to both elementary and high schools. Jane Kim made improving middle schools a prominent plank for her campaign. Let's see if the new board addresses this funding inequity.

Update:An observant reader found it odd that Wash was among the top ten, did some research, and found that the enrollment number was off by 1,000! Not only does that take it out of the top ten, it hurls it down into the bottom 10. Nice catch!

The reality about small schools

Here's my response to this brief about small schools. My own child attends a small school and I well understand the advantages. And I agree that SFUSD needs to support all its schools. But I'm concerned about the inaccurate script in some cases (as in a report in the past couple of days on KGO TV).

The script has it that there is a need for more small schools in SFUSD, and based on that idea, there's a current proposal on the table for a new one in the Bayview. But here's the real picture:

• Enrollment in SFUSD is dropping as families move away, a situation univerally blamed on San Francisco's astronomical housing prices. That means that if a new school is started, an existing school will have to close, a painful and divisive process.
• SFUSD has a number of small schools, and demand for seats in them is not exceeding supply overall. So there isn't a sound basis for adding more. SFUSD also has at least two larger high schools organized into Small Learning Communities.
• There is not a clear pattern of higher achievement at SFUSD's existing small schools, nor of higher achievement for African-American and Latino students.
• Most of the high schools in greatest demand, with the most applications per opening, and with the highest achievement are the larger, comprehensive high schools.

Thus, the implication that SFUSD needs more small schools is based on a misunderstanding of the situation. We need to support our existing schools and do nothing that harms them.— Caroline

Small School Community Action Brief

This report from the SFOP "accountability session" was posted to the sfschools list.

"Small Schools Save Lives" Community Action: A Briefing

Over 300 families, students and allies of San Francisco Small Schools by Design came together with the San Francisco Organizing Project last week to ask Superintendent Gwen Chan, School Board President Norman Yee and Gavin Newsom's education advisor and newly elected School Board member, Hydra Mendoza, for their support in passing a Small Schools Policy for San Francisco.

Under the banner of "Small Schools Save Lives," June Jordan student James Alderson declared that, "Business as usual isn't working in SF public schools." Indeed it seems clear that it is not, especially for African American and Latino youth. Savannah Shange, a teacher at June Jordan, pointed out, "almost 50% of African American and Latino students who start 9th grade will not complete 12th grade." She also shared that a recent California state report stated that "The achievement gap, in San Francisco, between African- American and Latino students, and the rest of the students, is far and away the widest achievement gap of urban districts in California." Although Small Schools by Design may not be a silver bullet for SFUSD's achievement gap woes, they do offer a vibrant, research- based alternative for students looking to build a pathway to college where there formerly has been none. What these schools lack in class options, they make up for in personalized learning environments, in which they are supported to meet rigorous standards. The Small Schools Policy is designed to protect the particular features that make Small Schools by Design unique and successful, including personalization, smaller class size, project- based learning, alternative forms of assessments, democratic governance structures and an emphasis on college readiness.

Parents from Small Middle School for Equity, June Jordan School for Equity, and San Francisco Community asked President Yee and Superintendent Chan for a commitment to quickly pass a strong policy, to create a District Assistant Superintendent to implement the policy, to form an open-door relationship with all school communities, and to honor the spirit of the policy by respecting existing small school autonomies now. In general, the officials answered with a resounding "yes," assuming a few details are ironed out and SFUSD and community partners work together to secure foundation funding. The foundation community has already shown the need for strong district leadership on this issue when the Bill Gates Foundation withdrew $15 million during the last school year. A strong policy, coupled with visionary leadership to implement a Small Schools program will attract foundations, such as Gates, back to SFUSD.

Kristen Bijur, a member of the Task Force and San Francisco Community's Head Teacher, confirmed that the Task Force will be ready to submit the document in January. Superintendent Chan spoke of her commitment for excellence for all and closing the persistent achievement gap. She said she shares the community's vision of aggressively searching for solutions, and that this complicated issue requires thoughtful solutions. She closed her statements by saying she will remain committed to Small Schools by Design if their programs produce results. Ultimately, the parents' question remains, will Superintendent Chan and SFUSD leadership support a policy with the strong autonomies needed to produce those results for the students that Small Schools are designed to serve?

With issues as critical as SFUSD's widening divisions between East side and West side and our gaping achievement gap, Superintendent Chan needs to act quickly to make a change. Change, she says, takes time. Five years after the original push for small schools by design, it is time, we see, that is one of our youth's most finite resources.

Allison Allbee Small Schools for Equity

Some of our contributors have been very skeptical of the small schools advocates claims. But I'm happy to provide a platform for this issue to be debated.

School Board Notes 11.15.06

By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• District Likely to Postpone Closing More Schools
• Suggested Ways to Improve Student Assignment
• Committee Seeks Input at Community Meetings

District Likely to Postpone Closing More Schools

The board will likely hold off for now on closing schools due to declining enrollment until the district has had more time to develop a long-term strategy, according to plans discussed Wednesday at a meeting of the committee charged with developing that strategy. That committee is currently engaged in a major effort to gather input from communities throughout the city on what people would like to see in public schools.

While the board is likely to forgo a reprise of its sweeping effort last year to close and merge schools, there are a few isolated issues which might cause it to close schools.

The biggest issue facing the district with regard to closures is its legal obligation to provide an acceptable site for charter schools, Wynns said. There are currently five charter schools petitioning for a new site: City Arts & Tech, Metro Arts & Tech, Edison, Kip Bayview Academy and Leadership High School, which has been offered a controversial placement on the bottom floor of Burton High School. The district is obligated to find acceptable sites for these schools by April.

Wynns said the proposed Leadership/Burton proposal was the tip of the iceberg. "Almost every publicly enrolled school that isn't full is going to have to face the prospect of sharing its school. It might be a charter school, it might be a specifically designed district small school, but they're going to have to share space."

Suggested Ways to Improve Student Assignment

Discussion included some initial suggestions for ways to improve the methods by which students are assigned to schools. These included:

• Clearly articulate the goals of the assignment process and establish measures to evaluate success
• Review and revise the admissions policies at Lowell and SOTA
• Review and revise attendance areas (zones that are loosely related to the neighborhood where students are encouraged to chose a school). Attendance areas are still on the books but are no longer actively being used in student assignment.
• Systemically address enrollment capacities at all schools, by addressing ways to balance over-subscription at some schools with under-enrollment at others.

Moves to revise Lowell and SOTA policies and to scrap attendance areas were part of a draft resolution that was to be submitted to the board last night but has been held until there is more time for discussion.

Committee Seeks Input at Community Meetings

The district's Parent Advisory Council began in August in an intensive effort to gather public input on a wide range of issues regarding student enrollment, recruitment and retention. The council has had 50 meetings over six weeks and spoken with about 400 people at sites throughout the city. It plans to continue this process over the next several months, especially in the Bayview and Western Addition neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods that have yet to be covered include Excelsior, Bernal Heights, Potrero, SOMA and Western Addition.

Structured as community conversations, the meetings seek to gather a wide range of input and opinions that include public school parents, private school parents, parents of small children and other community residents and stakeholders. The committee will be analyze and synthesize the input and submit it to the board in the coming months.

Community members interested in participating should write to pac@sfusd.edu to learn of upcoming meetings.

Diversity at SOTA

A resolution on this week's Board of Ed agenda called for examining the enrollment process at School of the Arts. The resolution has been withdrawn or postponed — presumably an explanation is forthcoming. But as this put the issue of diversity at SOTA on the table, SOTA Principal Donn Harris has provided information in a letter to the SOTA community.

Mr. Harris' letter, pasted below, makes clear that SOTA has been remarkably successful in increasing diversity. The California Department of Education calculates each school's diversity with a formula that assigns a score. By its gauge, SOTA is the second-most-diverse SFUSD high school, behind only Balboa. (The diversity scores for SFUSD high schools are pasted below the letter)

November 15, 2006

SOTA Community:

I am writing to give the community some important information about the recent Board of Education resolution suggesting future changes in the admissions policies of Lowell and SOTA High Schools. Upon my appointment as the SOTA principal in 2001, I was assigned to a Task Force charged with the development of a SOTA admissions policy that would increase access to the school, open up opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds, and maintain the rigorous artistic standards that had made the school a popular choice for many families. As this was a primary goal I held upon accepting this incredible principalship in 2001, I was ready to attack this problem immediately and was happy to be part of a District effort in this critical area.

The Task Force aggressively and enthusiastically went about its work from the first session. We focused on identification of students from underrepresented schools, building an infrastructure of contacts with counselors and arts teachers and the establishment of a visible, aggressive outreach program that would put us out into the community as ambassadors and recruiters. We agreed to accept students on potential, adjusted our audition practices to allow for alternate means of demonstrating talent, and for the past four years have continued to refine our processes and strengthen both our profile in the community and the fairness of our admissions procedures.

With financial assistance from the Miranda Lux, San Francisco and Friends of SOTA Foundations, Artistic Director Susan Stauter and I created a position that was the first of its kind among public arts schools in the United States – Director of Recruitment and Outreach. Using our grant funds, the power of our imaginations and fueled by our fierce commitment to diversity, we crafted the position to be a cornerstone of a ground-breaking recruitment plan that is now in its fifth year. It is with great pride that I can point to our successes. The following table and bullet points were included in a hand-out we delivered to the Board of Education on November 14.

SF School of the Arts Demographic Profile: 2001-2006

	2001	2006	% Change
Total Students	400	800	+100%
African-American	6%	11%	+83%
Latino	10%	17%	+70%
Chinese	11%	14%	+27%
White	38%	31%	-18%
Other Non-White	12%	16%	+33%
Special Education	7%	11%	+57%

SF School of the Arts Recruitment and Outreach Programs

• The development of The Academy of Arts and Sciences, a new adjunct to SOTA in which students may enroll without an audition. 615 students applied for the 80 seats that were available for the fall 2006 term, and the final selections were made through the diversity index lottery system.
• The creation of a Recruitment and Outreach Director who works with middle schools to attract students from underrepresented schools and ethnic groups to SOTA.
• Through a grant from the San Francisco Foundation administered by the Friends of SOTA Foundation, SOTA funds classes for middle school students in theatre, dance, visual arts and vocal music. In 2006, 12 of 18 students who participated in these after-school programs were admitted into SOTA.
• Partnerships with the American Conservatory Theater and the Community Music Center have allowed SOTA to identify promising middle school students and enroll them in arts programs that help prepare them for enrollment in SOTA.
• SOTA students perform community service at elementary and middle schools to strengthen arts programs throughout SFUSD.
• SOTA has held numerous events for middle school students, both in the community and on the SOTA campus. Over 2000 middle school students have attended these events over the past four years.
• SOTA is the designated site for the new offices of the SFUSD Visual and Performing Arts Department, where implementation of the new Arts Education Master Plan includes professional development for teachers, administrators and artists.

We as a community can be extraordinarily proud of our achievements in this area. We have worked in this direction because we believe in the creation of opportunities for all individuals and recognize our responsibility in the public arena to address inequities and take action. The creation of The Academy of Arts and Sciences is an unparalleled innovation that opens up a world of opportunity to students who might not have otherwise been able to experience the magic of creativity and inspiration. The items above are evidence of a school community that is filled with enormous inspiration, a sense of social justice, and the competence and expertise to envision programs, implement them, and produce measurable results. I am proud to be at the forefront of these efforts and commend each and every member of the SOTA and Academy of Arts and Sciences communities for their contributions to this amazing set of achievements.

A recent review of data from the California Department of Education indicates that in 2005-2006, School of the Arts, based on a diversity formula that takes all ethnic groups and their percentages into account, was the second most diverse high school in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Finally, we need to ensure that this message becomes part of the public record. The recently published BOE resolution regarding the development of a new District-wide admissions plan includes a clause that recommends another Task Force be created to examine the SOTA admissions policy. I welcome the examination of our current policy and am confident that it will reveal what I have just described above — that this community has risen to the challenge and will continue to push the envelope on this effort without sacrificing the high standards we have developed and nurtured. With Proposition H and the Arts Master Plan promising the city an entire school district filled with art and music and creativity at all levels, SOTA should have no difficulty attracting a diverse group of young artists in the future.

Again, my thanks to all of you for your unflagging efforts in helping to create a world-class educational environment that is available to children of all backgrounds.

Your Principal,
Donn Harris

Diversity scores, from the California Department of Education website:
'05-'06 school year

Ethnic Diversity
School Index
Balboa 65
SOTA 63
Burton 62
ISA 62
Jordan 62
Mission 62
Wallenberg 50
Marshall 47
Galileo 39
Lowell 35
Washington 33
Lincoln 32
O'Connell 30

School Board Notes 11.14.06

By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• District to Eliminate JROTC
• Burton Fights To Keep Leadership Out
• District Puts Off Proposal to Consider Race
• Officer Cites Incidents of Weapons Possession, Other Crimes

District to Eliminate JROTC

After heated public testimony and intense, sometimes angry debate, the board voted Tuesday to eliminate JROTC programs from the district. The program will be discontinued at the start of the 2008-09 school year. Until then, students can continue to enroll and receive class credit.

Commissioners Mark Sanchez, Dan Kelly, Sarah Lipson and Eric Mar voted to cut the program, while Commissioners Jill Wynns and Norman Yee voted against it. Commissioner Eddie Chin was absent from the meeting but sent a statement expressing opposition to the measure.

Some 1,600 students are currently enrolled in JROTC, which includes drum corps, flag corps, drill team and color guard. For now, the students in the program will be absorbed into the regular district curriculum during the day, including physical education classes for ninth- and 10th-graders and regular electives for 11th- and 12th-graders. The board said it will investigate other offerings to replace JROTC’s after-school activities.

Members of the public both in favor of and against the resolution thronged the meeting, while JROTC students staged a noisy demonstration outside. Many students who addressed the board gave emotional testimony about personal experience with the program. Several spoke of how it had kept them out of gangs and gave them motivation and self-esteem. They said it was the only after-school program available to them and that without it they’d be on the streets.

Superintendent Gwen Chan added her voice to the opposition. "While it’s not my wish to meddle in board policy, my heart is heavy with the possible decision to phase out JROTC," Chan said, adding that her years in the district had shown her the value of the program. Student delegates Diana Suen and Lea Elliott also opposed the measure, and said the Student Advisory Committee strongly supported JROTC.

Supporters of the measure offered equally impassioned testimony. One youngster told of a friend and another of a cousin who had been involved in JROTC, later enlisted in the military, and ended up in Iraq. Supporters said that JROTC was, if perhaps not an overt recruiting mechanism, a tool to create future soldiers and enlistees.

Yee proposed an amendment to make the elimination of JROTC contingent upon developing and implementing an alternative. The measure failed, however, with opponents expressing the concern that any efforts to launch a replacement program would be undermined by those who sought to keep JROTC.

During one particularly heated exchange, Commissioner Wynns accused the measure’s supporters of not really wanting to adopt a replacement program. She went on to propose an amendment that the district cut off all relationships with other groups that "discriminated," including those who gave scholarships specifically to students of color — the "logical extreme" Wynns said, of eliminating JROTC because of its relationship with the military, which discriminates against gays and lesbians.

Kelly called the amendment insulting, saying it "confuses discrimination with affirmative action." He also accused staff of dissembling about how students where assigned to JROTC. Kelly said he continued to receive reports that students who didn’t ask for JROTC were assigned to it and that counselors often placed troubled students in JROTC as an alternative to counseling.

Nancy Waymack, SFUSD’s director of policy and resource management, said the district did sometimes place students in JROTC if they stated "no preference" in selecting physical education programs (JROTC is considered an alternative to P.E.), but that students could ask to be switched out of the program.

Burton Fights To Keep Leadership Out

Families and teachers from Burton High School appealed to the district to halt a last-minute plan to move Leadership High School into the Burton’s bottom floor. Leadership, a charter school, is currently in a building that is seismically unsound and the district is required to find it alternate facilities.

Burton representatives said they had only learned at the beginning of this month of the plan, which calls for Leadership to move in to the school after Thanksgiving. This comes on the heels of a staff consolidation that led Burton to lose 10 teachers six weeks into the school year, after enrollment proved much lower than expected. The loss of those teachers caused some 800 students schedules to be changed.

Students said the move would cause further chaos, provoke fights between members of rival schools and interfere with preparing for final exams. Burton representatives also said the move would cause it to lose its computer lab and 20 classrooms, requiring many teachers to roam among available rooms. The classrooms are already overcrowded, according to students and faculty. English teacher Cari Bruzelius said she had close to 40 students in several of her classes. A P.E. teacher who asked not to be identified said she had 54 in most of her classes.

There are also several disparities between the schools that speakers said would be hard to reconcile. Burton, has 1,220 students, requires students to wear uniforms and has a closed campus. Leadership has 360 students with a much lower student-teacher ratio, does not require uniforms and has an open campus.

The district had tried to move Leadership into Balboa High School earlier this year but dropped the plan in response to public outcry.

District Puts Off Proposal to Consider Race

The district had been scheduled to introduce for first reading a measure that would make significant changes to the student-assignment process but decided to "indefinitely postpone" the issue when it became clear the meeting was proceeding late into the night.

The measure, authored by Norman Yee and Sarah Lipson, will likely be introduced at a meeting in the near future. If accepted, it would then be forwarded for review to all of the committees of the Board of Education, before going back to the board for a final vote.

The measure proposes several major revisions to the way students are currently assigned to schools. These include:

• Recommending changes to the admissions processes for Lowell and School of the Arts high schools, starting with the 2008-09 school year, to increase the diversity of students at these schools and ensure "equitable opportunities for students with diverse backgrounds."
• Pre-assigning students living in extreme poverty (measured by whether they live in public housing) after younger siblings and students with program need, starting in 2008-09.
• Adding race and ethnicity as a factor in the student assignment lottery, to be used in a "narrowly tailored manner" to help desegregate the schools.

Officer Cites Incidents of Weapons Possession, Other Crimes

Lt. Colleen Fatooh, the San Francisco Police Department’s liaison with the school district, detailed recent arrests that have been made on school campuses and where they occurred. The instances included assault with a deadly weapon, gun possession, discharge of a firearm, battery, grand theft, robbery and, in one instance, kidnapping.

Among the most serious incidents were:

• Visitacion Valley Middle School: assault with a deadly weapon
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School: assault with a deadly weapon (firearm)
• James Lick Middle School: discharging a firearm
• Washington High School: Five assaults with a deadly weapon, one strong-arm robbery
• Balboa High School: possession of a dangerous weapon
• Lincoln High School: assault with a deadly weapon (firearm)
• Mission High School: robbery/kidnapping
• O’Connell High School: assault with a deadly weapon

PPS/EPC Enrollment workshops scheduled

The school touring and enrollment season kicks into high gear now. In addition to this weekend's school faire, the Educational Placement Center (EPC) and Parents for Public Schools will be collaborating on a series of Enrollment Workshops which I've listed below. District and PPS staff will be available at each of the workshops to provide important enrollment information and to collect 2007-08 Enrollment Applications.

Tue, Nov 21, 2006	4-7pm	Horace Mann MS workshop
Thur, Nov 30, 2006	4-7pm	Charles Drew ES workshop
Tue, Nov 28, 2006	4-7pm	Mission High workshop
Teus, Nov 28	6:30-8:00pm	Balboa High School Open House
Tues, Nov 28	5:30-7pm	Mission High School Open House
Tues, Dec 5, 2006	4-7pm	Malcolm X ES workshop
Thur, Dec 7, 2006	4-7pm	Thurgood Marshall High workshop
Mon, Dec 11, 2006	4-7pm	Dr. George Washington Carver ES workshop
Tue, Jan 9, 2007	4-7pm	John Muir ES workshop
Thur, Jan 11, 2007	4-7pm	Starr King ES workshop

More info on each event can be found on our calendar

Public School Enrollment Faire this Saturday

Remember, the annual SFUSD public school enrollment fair will be held this Saturday. The what, where, when info below is copied from the poster which is also available in Spanish and Chinese here

Looking for the right school for your child?
Come to the Public School Enrollment Fair

Saturday, November 18th, 9:00am - 3:00pm
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
99 Grove Street, San Francisco (Civic Center, near City Hall)

Find out what each school can offer your child:

• Learn about the enrollment process and key dates for the 2007-2008 school year
  
• Hear about SFUSD's pre-kindergarten through 12th grade programs
  
• Meet principals, teachers, and parents
  
• Participate in informational workshops
  

Public Transportation: From anywhere in the greater Bay Area, take BART or MUNI to the CivicCenter station in San Franciso. From Market Street, take Grove Street and walk down one block. The auditorium is between Larkin and Polk Streets.

Parking: Across the street at the city-operated CivicCenter parking garage.

Childcare: to register email sromano@muse.sfusd.edu or call 241-6271.
www.sfusd.edu (415) 241-6085
San Francisco Unified School District
A great place to learn. A great place to work.

Press ignores shootings at much-hailed charter

A 23-year-old man was killed and a second man wounded in gunfire that erupted at a party Saturday night (Nov. 11) at an East Oakland charter school, according to an article in today's Oroville, Calif., Mercury Register.

The shooting is the second to occur on the Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy campus in "about" four months, the Mercury Register story said. In the previous shooting — also at a private party at the site outside school hours — two gang members were shot and wounded, the newspaper reported.

The fatal Saturday shooting occurred at an 18th-birthday party given for the granddaughter of an administrator at the school, the newspaper said. The 18-year-old is not a student at the school, the report added.

There are several eye-catching aspects to the tragic story.

Lionel Wilson charter is run by the widely hailed Aspire Public Schools charter chain, which was co-founded by Netflix founder Reed Hastings, former president of the California state Board of Education and leading charter school booster.

The school was the subject of a long, gushing October 2002 San Francisco Chronicle editorial headlined "Social Change: Charter Schools Take Root."

Walking through a brand-new school in an inner-city neighborhood is a rare and exhilarating experience. It's like having a new child. Optimism abounds. Expectations are sky high.

So it is at the Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy. ...

So far, at least, Lionel Wilson appears to be a model charter school, avoiding many of the pitfalls that have hamstrung, or sunk, other charter schools. .

Many charter schools have foundered because they were started by parents or others with no clue about how to start a new school. By contrast, Lionel Wilson was established by Aspire Public Schools, a nonprofit organization co- founded by is Don Shalvey, a former superintendent of the San Carlos Unified School District, and high-tech entrepreneur Reed Hastings. ...

Students say they get more personal attention here, and they feel safer than in the public schools they've attended.

Oddly, the only real news coverage of Saturday's slaying was the article in the Oroville newspaper — a small-town paper based in Butte County, 150 miles from San Francisco — and a very brief item on Bay City News Service. The incident was mentioned in passing as a secondary item in news reports about another Oakland shooting, outside a Jack London Square nightclub, the same night.

I can't find any news coverage at the time of the previous shooting — only the mention in today's Oroville newspaper account.

The press is all over any such incident with any connection to a San Francisco public school, including those involving outsiders at or near the school, and those involving students far from the school. The near-cone of silence over these two shootings is mystifying. I can't help wondering if it is somehow connected to the positive — fawning — coverage that Aspire manages to attract.

— Caroline

Lame ducks waddling

Once again, a lame duck BOE is lined up to thumb their nose at the voters. Three of the seven commissioners will never run for public office again. Others are willing to take advantage of this situation in the hopes that voter memories will fade before they stand for aleection again. This might want to check with Dan Kelly before they place that bet.

Race based admissions or gutting SOTA and Lowell were note mentioned on the campaign trail because no candidate could be elected if they proposed these ideas.

Kelly, in spite of his incumbent advantage, favored both and lost. He also was the only candidate clearly in favore of banishing JROTC, and the candidate with the heaviest baggage from the last lame duck outrage.

There are many difficult choices that the district must make as soon as possible. The budget forecast is awful. School closures and consolidations loom. It would be appropriate for the outgoing BOE to make some tough calls for the good of the distrct and for the sake of the incoming Commissioners.

Instead they appear hell-bent on opportunistic political dithering.

JROTC -- training or recruitment?

The Chronicle ran a noteworthy pair of op-ed pieces on the JROTC issue. These follow an in-depth feature about the program and the drive to bannish it: S.F. school board set to pull trigger on JROTC

CON: Popular doesn't = appropriate by Dan Kelly and Mark Sanchez:

JROTC has not been free from controversy or cost. Students and parents continue to complain that some students are coerced into joining, or are placed in the program automatically, that the JROTC acts as a stand-in for counseling or other services students need and deserve, and that the JROTC drains resources from other programs. Parents and students have complained about militarization of their campuses and school events by the prominent presence of uniformed cadet units. There have been episodes of hazing and group ostracism, and homophobic comments are still made against JROTC opponents. The U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays and lesbians prevents JROTC from employing openly gay instructors and bars openly gay students from the preferential enlistment opportunities that are among JROTC's touted benefits.

PRO: A battle over values by Michael Bernick:

The JROTC proponents are a varied group politically -- liberal, conservative, aging anti-war activists, libertarians. What unites them are values: the value that structure and discipline can play in being a good citizen and good person; the value of finding a positive affinity group in a large public high school; and perhaps most of all, the value of choice, the recognition that young people should have a diversity of organizations and activities to develop their maturity and self-confidence.

Personally, I am very much opposed to banning this program. I've written about this before and hope to again. My biggest fear now is that Dan Kelly and the lame duck BOE will take action before the new members have a chance to consider this issue. Some difficult, pressing questions need to be acted upon by the current board. But an issue as divisive and inherently political as JRTOC should not be determined by this board, where 3 of the 7 commissioners will be vacating their seats.

Congratulations to Commissioners Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza, and Kim-Shree Maufas

Congratulations to the winners of the 2006 BOE race, Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza, and Kim-Shree Maufas. With the departure of Eddie Chin, Sarah Lipson, and Dan Kelly one thing is certain — the BOE will get an injection of new blood and new ideas.

The Chron caught up with the winners in Jill Tucker's election wrap-up. They quote winner Jane Kim saying "I think I'm going to bring a lot of energy on the board." Hydra Mendoza was quoted, "I'm excited. I ran on my experience and qualifications, and I think it's going to pay off." Kim-Shree Maufas, who lost her voice, celebrated her victory by texting her mom: "XLNT, i 1"

As Commissioner Eric Mar said in a comment on the SfSchools list

The election of Kim, Maufus and Mendoza, 3 new strong progressive women of color, to the board will strengthen our progressive voice in support of equity, immigrant and language rights, and educational justice.

Time will tell if the new candidates really will make Eric's agenda their own. One thing is clear, we will have new faces and new ideas on board to attack the many challenges facing our district. Good luck to them all.

The complete tally of the BOE vote from the SF Elections Department site is:

Jane Kim	44,558
Hydra Mendoza	41,564
Kim-Shree Maufas	35,450
Bob Twomey	33,949
Dan Kelly	32,435
James Calloway	23,411
Wilma Pang	20,601
Bayard Fong	17,543
Kim Knox	16,719
Roger Schulke	12,023
Omar Khalif	10,824
Mauricio Vela	9,250
Boots Whitmer	8,860
Richard Van Loon	8,190
Joel Britton	4,382

Proposed Bayview school: response to my query

The Coalition of Essential Schools posted on its blog a long response to my query about the fact that a new Bayview school would harm nearby schools. It's odd that the response keeps citing a recent San Francisco Magazine article about the Bayview, because the whole point of that article was that the Bayview is rapidly losing families.

continue reading...

From the CES blog (my response posted there is pasted below):

More on the Bayview Essential School of Music, Art and Social Justice

The Problem of Declining Enrollment in SFUSD and the Academic Achievement Gap

The problem of declining enrollment in SFUSD is a huge and it has been so for several years. This problem is not unique to San Francisco, but S.F. is unique in that according to a recent report by Coleman Advocates, "Families Struggle to Stay: Why Families are Leaving San Francisco and What Can Be Done," currently SF has the smallest child population of any US city. Of those who leave, the majority, 62%, are low or middle income and 64% are people of color. It is no surprise why they leave — low performing schools and the lack of affordable housing is driving them out. Of the families that do remain, many are voting with their feet and enrolling their children in schools outside of the unified public school district, including private independent schools as well as public charter schools. So not only are families leaving at high rates, those who remain are clearly dissatisfied with the kind of education their children receive within many district schools. Recently school closings due to lack of enrollment have been in the news, but school closings are not only based on drops in enrollment they are also based on low performance. These schools are failing their students and adding to the already dramatic achievement gap that is well documented between African American students and others in this city.

Bayview: Highest Density of Children Being Underserved
But despite having low performing schools, gang violence, the highest infant mortality rate of any zip code in California, according to U.S. census data, the southeast area of S.F. drew more families than any other part of the city during the last two decades with 62% of San Francisco's African American school aged children living in Bayview-Hunter's Point alone.

CES in Partnership with Community
It is within this context that the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) is collaborating with a community advisory board made up of Bayview-Hunter's Point parents, youth and community members to design, plan and open a new small high school in the fall of 2007. We were approached a year and a half ago and we were given compelling reasons to get involved in this community. These reasons, the alarming drop-out rate, the high rates of truancy, violence and drug addiction among youth, continue to be all the right reasons to invest more than $500,000 into this project. We gave our word and created a partnership with the Bayview community to plan and design a small school that would provide a quality educational experience that prepares youth to not only earn a high school education, but also open pathways for them to enter and be successful in college. Presently, almost 37% of Bayview residents over the age of 25 don't have a high school diploma and only 11.6% hold a college degree according to an article in San Francisco magazine.

Committed to Working with the District
CES and the community advisory board of the proposed school are committed to collaborating with the school district to establish the right conditions for the Bayview Essential School of Music, Art and Social Justice (BES) to successfully open and fulfill its mission. The school's mission is to engage, educate, and empower Bayview youth to transform their lives while positively contributing to the betterment of their community. Research demonstrates that small schools can re-engage urban youth in their learning process, help to reduce violence and have the highest potential of creating community partnerships used to support youth in and out of school.

Benefits to Families, Community and City
Truancy and drop-out rates of Bayview youth are creating a population of severely uneducated and unemployable youth. Our goal is to change that trend and graduate BES students as artists, scholars, teachers and engaged citizens and that would greatly benefit their families, the community and city of S.F.

Freedom to Choose Quality Education
If families who live in southeast San Francisco feel that the schools their children presently attend are meeting their needs, I am sure that they will not choose to pull them out of educationally sound environments and send them to a new small high school that they'd have to take a chance on. Only those families whose children are falling through the cracks in the already existing schools and are being under-served would most likely choose to send their children to a different environment. Doesn't that make sense? Don't we all want our children to get the best quality education possible, now? Or maybe we should make these families wait until the people in charge figure out how to reform the schools that have been failing their children for the last several decades.

Mara Benitez
Senior Director of School Development
Coalition of Essential Schools
Posted by Mara Benitez at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's the response I posted (subject to their approval):

But Bayview schools are still losing enrollment, and the same San Francisco magazine article described families' leaving the Bayview to raise their kids in the suburbs.

So this may be accurate:

"...62% of San Francisco's African American school aged children living in Bayview-Hunter's Point alone..."

...but the population is still not that high, the population of African-American children in Bayview is dropping, and the schools are not full.

So a new school will undeniably harm the nearby existing schools. This explanation doesn't clear up that concern at all.

I am not comfortable with an out-of-town organization coming into our school district and doing harm to our existing schools. I'm also not comfortable with the putdown of our current schools and the supremely confident assumption that an outside organization will automatically do so much better. And I don't think the teachers and administrators currently dedicating themselves to a very challenged population in the Bayview schools deserve the disparagement that this explanation conveys.

This whole attitude — an outside organization coming in boasting of its ability to do so much better than the existing schools and teachers — reminds me very much of Edison Schools, except without the profit motive.

— Caroline

The youth have spoken

The results of one SF BOE poll are already in, and James Calloway, Jane Kim, and Bayard Fong are the winners.

YouthVOTE 2006 conducted a poll of more than 8,000 SF high school students who cast their votes on today's election issues. The balloting was conducted by the YouthVOTE Coalition, which includes the San Francisco Youth Commission, the Student Advisory Council of the San Francisco Unified School District and the Youth Leadership Institute. This is not their first poll. In 2004 they chose Calloway, Kim, and Heather Hiles—as well as nearly voting in Starchild!

For more of the YouthVOTE results, check out Heather Knight's blog. And if anyone has the full results o this year' polling, please send it to me and I'll post it along with today's results.

Would a new Bayview school harm other schools?

I posted this question on the blog of the Coalition for Essential Schools, which is proposing a new small school in the Bayview. It was originally reported as a proposed charter school, but BOE member Eric Mar says it wouldn't be a charter. Here's my post:

The proposal for the new Bayview school troubles me. Since enrollment in the San Francisco Unified School District is dropping, opening a new school guarantees harming an existing one.

The new school would be located close to Thurgood Marshall High School, which is turning around after some troubled years, and Phillip and Sala Burton High School, which is losing enrollment. It's also not far from the June Jordan Small School for Equity, which has never been at full enrollment. All these vulnerable schools would undoubtedly be harmed by a new school opening nearby. Isn't that going to do damage to the community, not benefit it?

Charters inflict damage on school districts in any case, but whether this school is a charter or not, I find the question of its impact on nearby schools a real concern. -- Caroline Grannan, SFUSD parent, volunteer and advocate

I got an e-mail from the blogmaster that the leaders of the Coalition of Essential Schools will respond to my question asap. I'll post the response.

— Caroline

Small schools, big concerns

Publicity for an event this Thursday called "Small Schools Save Lives" has prompted me to voice some concerns about some aspects of the "small schools movement."

My own 10th-grader attends a small school, San Francisco School of the Arts, with about 600 students. The small size is one of the things we appreciate about the school. I do know other students thriving in SFUSD's large high schools — which actually tend to be SFUSD's highest-achieving and most-sought-after high schools.

But here are some things that trouble me. Some of the outreach/publicity the small schools movement and specifically its local showcase, June Jordan Small School for Equity, have done involves disparaging other schools — and with inaccurate information to boot — and inflaming destructive conflict within the public school community.

It's hard to determine the extent of those practices. But it is indisputable that June Jordan spokesman Matt Alexander gave the SF Weekly misinformation for an article a few months ago in several troubling categories. I discussed this with both Mr. Alexander and the SF Weekly reporter after the article ran, so I'm pretty familiar with the situation.

Here are the messages that I think are harmful. I'm voicing these concerns publicly to raise the consciousness of small-schools proponents in the hope that some of
this inflammatory rhetoric can be toned down.

— The outreach disparaged other schools in the name of boosting June Jordan — and with inaccurate information, too.

— The outreach gave misleading information comparing June Jordan's pass rate on the California High School Exit Exam to other schools' in a manner that disparaged other schools, based on inaccurate information about June Jordan's pass rate.

— The outreach indicated inaccurately that June Jordan is turning away students, leading to the conclusion (in the SF Weekly article) that SFUSD should be creating more small schools to meet demand but is refusing to do so. Here are some problems with this: Actually, there are openings in SFUSD small high schools (June Jordan and Leadership,to name two), so the indication that new small schools are needed is not accurate. A push to create new schools in a district that's losing
enrollment (which would obviously mean closing some other school) is obviously problematical and likely to inflame controversy and conflict.

— The outreach indicated that SFUSD is refusing to create new small schools. Actually, SFUSD did create a small school the year before last without the involvement of the "official" small-schools movement. That school is the Academy of Arts & Sciences on the SOTA campus, now in its second year, with 90 students per grade. In addition, SFUSD has redesigned at least two high schools into "small
learning communities." Again, this script inflames needless controversy and conflict.

— There seems to be a notion being promoted that SFUSD has it in for small schools. One poster on the Parents for Public School listserve described June Jordan as being "under attack." Again, this seems designed to inflame controversy and conflict in an area where I don't see that that's called for.

Does our district need more controversy and conflict? The script that small schools are a raging success that the heartless bureaucrats are refusing to acknowledge and replicate is not accurate, and the apparent push to promote this into a rage-against-the-machine-type conflict is potentially destructive.

I absolutely agree that the community should support existing schools, including June Jordan. But I think that the notion of promoting small schools by disparaging other schools, and inflaming controversy in the school district where it's not called for, is harmful to our schools, our district and our kids. So I'm publicly calling on the "small schools movement," whomever that is, to rethink that strategy and look for ways to benefit and support our school district, all our schools, and all our kids.

— Caroline

Richard Van Loon's response to the SfSchools BOE Questionnaire

We have another response to our SfSchools BOE questionnaire, this one coming from Richard Van Loon. Richard's answers are in-depth and from the heart. I want to thank him for the great effort and attention he has given to these answers.

You'll find his answers here and listed on our election page. Here is one short but representative sample from his response:

Some of the main causes of family flight are the very resolutions members of the Board of Education have passed and the direction in which they have been guiding our public schools. I believe it is wrong for an elected official to inject their personal political views into public policies, especially when those policies result in harming the very people and institutions those officials have been elected to serve, and yet this seems to be the norm on our current board. Some commissioners have expressed the belief that even though their policies may end up driving 'affluent' or 'middle-class' families out of the city, they will pursue them. I am running for the Board of Education to offer an alternative choice, an independent voice representing the aspirations and concerns of parents.

Educational Justice: update on crafting a new small school policy

Here's an update on the effort to craft a new small school policy that I found over on Eric Mar's blog: Fighting for Small School Reform in San Francisco:

The San Francisco Organizing Project [SFOP], June Jordan High School for Equity, and others this month are working with San Francisco Unified School District officials to develop a clear small schools policy which incorporates much stronger autonomies and support for the reform efforts.

There will be an "accountability session" held with the distrct on November 8th at the San Francisco Community School that I've added to our calendar.